The number of Indian tourists visiting Bali in the first eleven months of 2007 jumped 81.6 percent to 19,204 from a year earlier, a tour operator said. “I believe the number of Indian tourists visiting Bali will continue to increase because Indian and Balinese people have many things in common,” Cokorda Agung said on Wednesday (16/1). “The potential to attract more Indian tourists is very great, the more so because India will be one of the targets of the Indonesian tourism campaign to start in February 2008,” he said. He said the Indian government had opened its culture foundation in Bali with the aim of fostering relations with the Balinese people. India last year ranked 14th in terms of foreign tourists visiting Bali. To conduct the tourism campaign in India, the Indonesian government has set up tourism representative offices in Delhi and Mumbai. Similar offices have also been set up in other 11 countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Britain, China and Saudi Arabia. Director of Foreign Promotion at the Indonesian Culture and Tourism Ministry Tatang Rukhiyat said on the sidelines of a meeting with 20 Indian film producers in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday that the number of Indian tourists visiting Indonesia last year rose 52 percent to around 84,000 from a year earlier. (January 16th 2007, Antara News)
Indonesian Teenage Girl Dies of Bird Flu
A 16-year-old Indonesian girl has died of bird flu, a health ministry official said on Tuesday (15/1). The girl from Bekasi area east of Jakarta tested positive for bird flu last week, the official at the Health Ministry’s bird flu centre was quoted as saying by Reuters. “One of the girl’s neighbors owns a chicken farm. Tests by the agriculture ministry’s bird flu centre show the chickens had bird flu,” said the official, who declined to be identified. Contact with sick fowl is the most common way of contracting bird flu, endemic in bird populations in most of Indonesia. An eight-year-old Indonesian boy from Tangerang, died of bird flu on Friday (18/1), the health ministry said, bringing the country’s death toll from the virus to 97. The boy from west of the capital Jakarta, died after being treated for one day at the country’s main bird flu treatment centre, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement. The ministry said the fact the boy’s neighbor ran a chicken slaughterhouse was a risk factor and it was investigating. Although bird flu remains an animal disease, experts fear the virus could mutate into a form easily passed from human to human and kill millions. A 32-year-old woman from Tangerang near Jakarta, who bought a live chicken and some eggs from a market, died of bird flu at her home last Thursday. On Christmas day, a 24-year-old woman from Jakarta also died from the virus after buying a live chicken from a market. Indonesia has had the most number of deaths from bird flu worldwide (January 18th 2007, Antara News)
UN Body to Hold Anti-Corruption Conference in Bali
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) will host an international conference in Bali on the fight against corruption, from January 28 to February 1, the UNODC announced Tuesday (16/1). The conference will bring together the 140 signatory countries to the United Nations convention against corruption, AFP reported citing UNODC. Some 107 of the signatories have ratified the convention since the UN Assembly adopted it in 2003. The conference will focus on private-sector corruption, and moves to create greater transparency in the funding of political parties and of electoral campaigns. January 26th 2007, Antara News)
Bali Heading for Massive Traffic Jams - New Laws Needed to Limit Vehicles
Over eleven thousand new registrations for vehicles are issued in Bali every month according to a police spokesman Made Suyasa. Suyasa pointed out that over the past two years the amount of motor vehicles (cars and bikes) seeking registration had averaged ten percent growth per year. In 2006 there were 1,587,302 vehicles on the road and in 2007 that figure increased to 1,731,600 units. At the current rate of growth by the year 2018 there would be well over three million vehicles in Bali which would choke the islands already jammed roads. Currently no second hand cars more than 10 years old may be sold in Bali (from other Islands), and no motor bikes more than five years old may be marketed other than from sources on the Island. (January 16th 2008, Bali Post)
Indonesia-Japan to focus on Three Things
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wants the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Indonesia-Japan relations this year to be focused on three things - culture, education and friendship between the two countries` youths. “Closer relations between the youths of the two countries are important so they can be expected to inherit and continue the present good relations between Indonesia and Japan,” presidential spokesman Dino Pati Djalal quoted the president as saying when receiving visiting Japanese Prince Akishino at the Merdeka Palace here Saturday (19/1). Dino said Prince Akishino at the meeting read out a message from Japanese Emperor Akihito who expressed pleasure about the relations between Indonesia and Japan which had grown significantly in the past 50 years. After meeting with the President, Prince Akishino will also pay a call on Vice President Jusuf Kalla and visit an organization active in the fight against Tuberculosis (TBC) in Jakarta. (January 19th 2007, Antara News)
Dutch Tourist Falls 2 Storeys to his Death in Ubud
A Dutch tourist, Johannes P. M. Van Delft (65) fell from the second storey of the Puri Damai Villa at the Kedewatan Village, Ubud on Thursday (17/1). Mr. Van Delft was found at 04.30 hrs by his wife 63 year old Jeannette when she awoke to go to the bathroom. The victim appeared to have fallen from the second storey of the villa and had suffered head injuries with blood coming from his ears and nose. He appeared to have been dead for some time and no attempts were made to resuscitate the man. It was not clear how the man came to fall from the building; however local police said that they had no reason to suspect foul play. (January 18th 2007, Bali Post)
36 School Students Diagnosed with Hepatitis A - Tabanan
36 primary school students from SD 2 Bantas in Tabanan have been diagnosed with Hepatitis A. The outbreak is thought to have been caused by food or water contaminated by the Hepatitis A virus. The department of health is currently investigating whether the source of the food is within the school at the campus canteen, or whether it is from an outside source frequented by the students. (January 18th 2007, Bali Post)
Bali to Host Sixth International Avian Flu Summit in March 2008
Indonesia’s resort island of Bali will host the Sixth International Bird Flu (Avian Influenza/AI) Summit from March 27 to 28, 2008, the event’s organizers said in a statement. Top leaders and key decision-makers of major companies representing a broad range of industries will meet with noted scientists, public health officials, law enforcers, and other experts to discuss pandemic prevention, preparedness, responses and recovery of bird flu at the summit, according to a press statement of the summit’s organizing committee, the US-based New Fields Exhibitions, Inc., on Friday (18/1). The summit’s participants will be able to draw on first-hand best practices to create the solid business continuity plans that their companies and organizations need in order to prepare for, respond to, and survive a pandemic. Among topics of discussion during the Summit will be Preparing Community Strategies, Local Partnership Participation, Delivery of Vaccine and Anti-viral Medication, National Pandemic Influenza Medical Countermeasures and Benefit-Risk Assessment: Public Health, Industry and Industry Regulated Perspectives. (January 16th 2008, Antara News)
Bali’s Canned Fish Exports hit Record High
Bali’s canned fish exports in the first 11 months of 2007 hit a record high of US$11.8 million, a report said. The exports represented a 99 percent increase from the same period in 2006, the Bali Provincial Industry and Trade Office said in a report on Friday (18/1). Canned fish once disappeared from the list of the province’s non-oil/non-gas exports but this did not mean that the local fish canning industry ceased production, the report said. The canned fish exports mainly went to the United States, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. The Bali fish canning industry is located in Jembrana about 80 km west of the provincial capital, Denpasar. (January 18th 2007, Antara News)
